I am just over a month end and Khan has bone in meals for almost every meal still. A week or so ago I fed him just venison(no bone) for a meal and he had diarrhea. He has had fish(catfish, cod and tilapia) fillets basically no bone/very little with no issue. So as far as RMB one meal and muscle meat the next a lot will depend on how your dogs do(poop wise)

Tonight he had pork ribs and a couple pieces of venison. I'm hoping for no surprises when I get home from work. I am going to try and slowly add meat into smaller bone in meals.

I feed pork necks and ribs. I have tried feet and that didn't go well. I have 3 more in the freezer that I will probably try again at another time. I also have some tails that I haven't tried yet. I'm not sure how much nutritional value/meat there really is, but I figured I'd feed them with something else.

Oh and I feed 2 meals a day...

I'm not entirely sure starting with pork is a good idea, but someone with more experience will probably be able to answer that. I know they recommend chicken because the bones are softer. I made the mistake of starting with beef...after explosive diarrhea I restarted with Turkey and have been going strong from there.

FBODGRL wrote:I am just over a month end and Khan has bone in meals for almost every meal still. A week or so ago I fed him just venison(no bone) for a meal and he had diarrhea. He has had fish(catfish, cod and tilapia) fillets basically no bone/very little with no issue. So as far as RMB one meal and muscle meat the next a lot will depend on how your dogs do(poop wise)

Tonight he had pork ribs and a couple pieces of venison. I'm hoping for no surprises when I get home from work. I am going to try and slowly add meat into smaller bone in meals.

I feed pork necks and ribs. I have tried feet and that didn't go well. I have 3 more in the freezer that I will probably try again at another time. I also have some tails that I haven't tried yet. I'm not sure how much nutritional value/meat there really is, but I figured I'd feed them with something else.

Oh and I feed 2 meals a day...

I'm not entirely sure starting with pork is a good idea, but someone with more experience will probably be able to answer that. I know they recommend chicken because the bones are softer. I made the mistake of starting with beef...after explosive diarrhea I restarted with Turkey and have been going strong from there.

thanks!My guys have had pork meals before with no issues, they regularily eat riblets, hocks and tails so Im hoping that means they will be ok.

bone in hamunless it's a preprocessed ham - no. Ham is cooked/smoked and that imparts a lot of salt and such. If they had a mis-production and they are trying to off bad cuts - then it'll be a big butcher job, but yes.

side ribstailshocksbellies rib in/rind ontonguesback rib endsYes.

Your next thought process should be to which of these are the right size for your dogs. The Tails might be too small for either of them unless you have thoughtful eaters. I'd probably use the tails as a crate snack or feed in a partially frozen chuck to minimize the possibility of swallowing them whole.

What it looks like you are missing is edible bones for your 24-pounder. Look for items like chicken drumsticks, thighs and the bigger 1/2 of a turkey wings for her. Now, she might become a raw rock star and just right in with the big dog stuff but I'd start her out with something you know she can be successful with - if it's too difficult in the beginning, some dogs will "give up".

starrlamia wrote:

I can also possibly get a super good deal on ribs with boar taint (i think thats what its called, something about male pigs with cryptorchid?... )

Also, I was reading Raw and Natural Nutrition for dogs by Lew olson and it mentioned feeding an RMB for one meal and muscle meat for the next, does that sound about right?

bone in hamunless it's a preprocessed ham - no. Ham is cooked/smoked and that imparts a lot of salt and such. If they had a mis-production and they are trying to off bad cuts - then it'll be a big butcher job, but yes.

side ribstailshocksbellies rib in/rind ontonguesback rib endsYes.

Your next thought process should be to which of these are the right size for your dogs. The Tails might be too small for either of them unless you have thoughtful eaters. I'd probably use the tails as a crate snack or feed in a partially frozen chuck to minimize the possibility of swallowing them whole.

What it looks like you are missing is edible bones for your 24-pounder. Look for items like chicken drumsticks, thighs and the bigger 1/2 of a turkey wings for her. Now, she might become a raw rock star and just right in with the big dog stuff but I'd start her out with something you know she can be successful with - if it's too difficult in the beginning, some dogs will "give up".

starrlamia wrote:

I can also possibly get a super good deal on ribs with boar taint (i think thats what its called, something about male pigs with cryptorchid?... )

Also, I was reading Raw and Natural Nutrition for dogs by Lew olson and it mentioned feeding an RMB for one meal and muscle meat for the next, does that sound about right?

Thanks so much!!!!!Brie is pretty good with raw, she has had ox tails, riblets, chicken backs, turkey wings, pork necks, I can definately get her some smaller items to start off with.

I think I will definately order tails (for treats... they are really good with them when ive gotten them in the past), hocks and tongue, and probably one more thing... Would it be more worthwhile to get back end ribs or bellies? If you can recommend

I know I asked this either here or in my thread, but now I have a more in depth question about fish.

Khan has eaten tilapia, cod and catfish. Just fillets. Not whole fish with head and skin.

I read on the raw feeding group on yahoo a post where someone was saying feeding tilapia is bad because it is mos likely farm fish and fed corn and something else. Plus it was no good for any Omega's.

So my question is....is this true? What type of fish should I feed? Salmon is a really not cost effective. I suppose I could feed it occasionally, but not on a regular basis. I thought any fish was ok.

I haven't done any beef since I started in the beginning, but I think I may pick some up next week.

FransterDoo wrote:What's your pricing on those? I'm questioning that they have bellies that aren't uber expensive. After all, they are in good demand these days

For me, I'd look at if I had a nice mix of bone and boneless. It I had some nice fat on pieces and how much money I had to spend!

I talked to my friend and she said the bellys are really fatty, so Im assuming that wouldnt be a good idea?

Yes - bellies are what they make bacon out of. But cheap cuts is cheap cuts around here so I'd do something like 1/2 portion of a lean meat and 1/2 portion of the fatty meat.

have you started yet??

not yet, i wont get an order until the 17th or 18th you can only order once a month, but she talked to her manager and they will get me cheap marrow bones (not good for raw but good for my pocketbook!)

Turkeys around here are at about 90 cents a lb so Im going to try and pick up 2-3 turkeys this weekend and cut up and satrt, since we are out of kibble as of tomorrow

I hacked up my first turkey today, got 3 for .87 cents a lb at the grocery store. I only hacked one up so far it took a long while , but got a good 10 meals for 13 bucks and a back in tact still. I didnt do perfectly in portioning, if it was off half an oz i didnt really do much unless i had bits left to fill in, i just paired slightly larger meals for the morning and slightly smaller meals for the evening. There are also some meals that are bonier but their second meal of the day is all meat. So I guess we shall see how it goes.Tomorrow night 2 more turkeys to break down, I have a new found respect for both meat cleavers and butchers.

remember that each meal doesn't have to be right on. Sometimes in the middle of a big butcher session, I'll start planning big meals to use with something smaller I have in the freezer. So Hank might get the whole turkey back one day and then a smaller, boneless meal for the next day or two (once he stops looking pudgy).

thanks! i hacked most of the meat off the back i have its mostly just fat now , i do have a few meals for them that are their whole day's worth like the drumsticks, it shouldnt be too much of an issue to feed them once a day a couple of times right?

starrlamia wrote:thanks! i hacked most of the meat off the back i have its mostly just fat now , i do have a few meals for them that are their whole day's worth like the drumsticks, it shouldnt be too much of an issue to feed them once a day a couple of times right?

shouldn't! You might want to hand out a couple of cookies or a slice of Nature's Balance roll during the missing meal and make sure that you have some amount of meat on those bones if they are prone to hard poops or bile pukes.

The cheapest way for us to buy green tripe is in the 5 pound logs. It means everyone gets super huge tripe meals. I just cut back by 1/2 the meals around it until we've evened out a bit.